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COVID-19 is the most devastating pandemic that affected humanity and the world economy. This paper aimed to study the time-varying connectedness between the COVID-19 vaccination, infection rate (INFR), and the case fatality ratio (CFR) in the United States and the stock market returns. We used COVID-19 daily confirmed number of infections, deaths, and vaccinations and the daily US stock market index return. A wavelet coherence approach was used to assess the co-movement of the US stock market with the COVID-19 vaccination, INFR, and the CFR. The COVID-19 vaccination, INFR, and CFR have a positive and significant influence on S&P 500 returns at the majority of business cycle frequencies with an in-phase relation. The wavelet coherence analysis uncovers strong and significant connectedness between COVID-19 vaccination rate and S&P 500 return. From an economic perspective, the US government should continue its intervention with their vaccination strategy, as it is beneficial for fighting the pandemic. This may lead to the recovery of the stock market as well as to the whole economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate voluntary pledges to improve the health of Americans have not been held to either explicit measurable outcomes or a framework for independent evaluation. The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), whose members include 16 of the nation's leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) food and beverage manufacturers, voluntarily pledged to collectively sell 1 trillion fewer calories in the U.S. marketplace by 2012 (against a 2007 baseline), and sell 1.5 trillion fewer calories by 2015. This paper presents the findings of an independent evaluation of the 2012 HWCF marketplace pledge, conducted in 2013. The 16 HWCF companies collectively sold approximately 6.4 trillion fewer calories (-10.6%) in 2012 than in the baseline year of 2007. Taking into account population changes over the 5-year period of 2007-2012, CPG caloric sales from brands included in the HWCF pledge declined by an average of 78 kcal/capita/day. CPG caloric sales from non-HWCF national brands during the same period declined by 11 kcal/capita/day, and there were similar declines in calories from private label products. Thus, the total reduction in CPG caloric sales between 2007 and 2012 was 99 kcal/capita/day. This independent evaluation is the first to evaluate food industry compliance with its calorie reduction pledges and to assess how sales from the CPG food and beverage sector are changing. An accompanying paper investigates the extent to which the HWCF pledge affected household-level changes in CPG calories purchased, controlling for important economic and sociodemographic factors affecting household food purchases over this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dyslipidemia is a common pathology throughout the industrialized world, and HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) are often administered to treat elevated lipid levels. Substantial concern has been raised regarding the aggressive clinical lowering of cholesterol, particularly in light of a growing body of research linking low circulating lipid levels with negative behavioral outcomes in both human samples and non-human primate models. In 2009, Goldstein and colleagues tentatively speculated that the greed, impulsiveness, and lack of foresight that lead to the worldwide economic collapse in 2007-2008 could have been caused (in part) by depressed population cholesterol levels resulting from the widespread use of statins by workers in the financial services industry. This paper reviews the literature that links low circulating lipid levels with neurobehavioral dysfunction, develops Goldstein and colleagues' initial speculation into a formal hypothesis, and proposes several specific studies that could rigorously empirically evaluate this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Human societies depend for their survival on goods and services provided by both local and global ecosystems. For most of history, people used mainly local resources. Increasingly, however, globalization and trade enable consuming populations everywhere to support themselves on the output of distant ecosystems. This is potentially problematic because of global change and because the spatial separation of material production (including resource exploitation) from consumption eliminates the direct negative feedback that normally occurs when people dependent on local ecosystems degrade those ecosystems. With spatial separation comes psychological separation. Modern consumers remain generally unconscious of their growing reliance on biophysical goods and services produced half a world away and see no connection between their consumer lifestyles and distant ecological consequences. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to raise a cautionary flag about unfettered trade and to show the value of accounting for trade-related physical flows and their impacts on natural capital in sustainability analyses. Using the United States as an example, we present an analytical method that can locate and measure the ecosystem area embodied in any population''s imports of renewable resources. We quantify U.S. imports from specific countries around the world; we estimate the area of terrestrial ecosystems in those countries devoted to consumers in the U.S. and we highlight both increasing U.S. imports and their potential impact on extra-territorial ecosystems. This method creates indirect (conceptual) feedback between consumption and ecosystems integrity which we hope will partially replace the physical feedback neutralized by globalization. Such analyses can help generate public and decision makers’ awareness of both their dependence and their impacts on, distant natural capital stocks. This in turn should increase interest in establishing improved co-management regimes to maintain the stability and reliability of such now obligatory relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper demonstrates that short sales are often misclassified as buyer-initiated by the Lee–Ready and other commonly used trade classification algorithms. This result is due in part to regulations which require that short sales be executed on an uptick or zero-uptick. In addition, while the literature considers “immediacy premiums” in determining trade direction, it ignores the often larger borrowing premiums that short sellers must pay. Since short sales constitute approximately 30% of all trade volume on U.S. exchanges, these results are important to the empirical market microstructure literature, as well as to measures that rely upon trade classification, such as the probability of informed trading (PIN) metric. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Price incentives, or rebates, have been proposed as one promising strategy for improving diet quality among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants. This paper explores the existing evidence on effectiveness of rebates in this program. In particular, this paper considers findings from a recent RCT of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rebates, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Healthy Incentives Pilot, in the context of the broader literature on rebate strategies. The paper concludes that rebates have a moderate impact on food intake, at moderate cost relative to alternative interventions. There is further evidence that implicit promotional effects may contribute to impacts of rebate interventions, beyond the impacts of price effects alone. However, existing studies on complementary effects of explicit promotion have been limited by relatively small sample sizes and correspondingly low power to detect differences. This appears to be a promising area for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a historical background for the current nutrition issues faced by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Food Stamp Program evolved into SNAP during a period when U.S. diets, particularly those of the poor, became less healthful. During the 1960s, the U.S. (Kennedy-Johnson era) addressed malnutrition first with a pilot project focused on retail sales and cash food stamps, which showed that low-income consumers purchased relatively healthy foods for a fairly high-quality diet. Southern politicians in the House of Representatives wanted a program similar to an earlier subsidized commodity distribution program. The pilot provided the evidence northern urban politicians sought, and they held the farm bill hostage until southern rural interests agreed to an unfettered Food Stamp Program that allowed purchases directly from retailers. A final Food Stamp Program law was incorporated into the farm bill and passed. This program shifted in 1977 to a full cash benefit system later, first using food stamps to act as cash and later an Electronic Benefit Transfer program. The program was designed at a time of a very healthful diet of lower-SES Americans. As diets of lower-income Americans changed and the entire food system shifted, the program has not been adjusted in any manner. Today, 50%-66% of the calories in the American diet, particularly that of low-SES Americans, come from highly processed foods containing excessive refined carbohydrates, sodium, unhealthy saturated fats, and added sugar. The SNAP design has not responded to these shifts in diet and the powerful interests controlling our food system. This twist in the U.S. diet and food system presents a major dilemma to those attempting to form a healthy food program based on the results of an effective pilot project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]